The tearing hurry with which Afzal Guru was hanged, accompanied by the flouting of all established norms by not giving his family their legal right to meet him before taking him to the gallows, clearly indicates that there were political considerations behind taking this step. More shameful is the explanation of the Home department that the wife and family of Afzal Guru were intimated of the hanging by a mail sent by Speed Post and Registered Post. Decency and humanity demanded that the Union Government give prior intimation to the family and an opportunity to meet him. Such a surreptitious action of the government also deprives the family of Afzal Guru to right to seek legal remedy.

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PUCL also condemns the repressive stand of the Delhi police in not allowing a group of people who were protesting against the hanging and detaining them in police stations. We are equally concerned by reports that right-wing goons were permitted by the police to use violence against the protestors. PUCL asserts the right of citizens to dissent and express their opposition to capital punishment in a peaceful manner.

PUCL reiterates its demand for the abolition of the death penalty. PUCL is of the view that India must not retain in its statute book something so abhorrent to human rights as the death penalty. More especially, when more than one hundred and fifty countries have banned or put a moratorium on it. PUCL feels that as the land of Buddha and Gandhi, death penalty has no place.

PUCL feels that starting with Kasab, now with Afzal Guru, the country is going to witness a spate of executions. We give a call to the nation to break this spiral of executions.

Is there actual evidence that 13/12 is a macabre plot, in which the criminal justice system and judiciary are implicated? Ms Roy builds her case around what can, at best, be described as parts of the evidence, cherry-picked for polemical effect...

The larger assertions Ms Roy makes, based on her selective reading of evidence, are even less grounded in the real world.

Even where a person has killed another, or many others, in any circumstance or for any reason, there is no justification for taking his life. The provision for capital punishment is based on a primitive idea of retribution and should have no place in the statutes of a civilised society.

Afzal Guru did not kill, and there is no absolute certainty about his role in the events that he is said to have been involved in. Then why did he have to be executed? The question will haunt the nation’s conscience in the days and years to come.

Afzal Guru was walked to the gallows on Saturday morning at the end of the macabre rite governments enact from time to time to propitiate that most angry of gods, a vengeful public. Through this grim, secret ceremony, however, India has been gravely diminished….

In case after case, the course of criminal justice has been shaped by public anger and special-interest lobbying. Indians must remember the foundational principle of our Republic, the guardian of all our rights and freedoms, isn’t popular sentiment: it is justice, which in turn is based on the consistent application of principles.

For one overriding reason, Guru’s hanging ought to concern even those unmoved by his particular case, or the growing ethics-based global consensus against the death penalty. There is no principle underpinning the death penalty in India today except vengeance. And vengeance is no principle at all.

Wasn’t it? Yesterday I mean. Spring announced itself in Delhi. The sun was out, and the Law took its Course. Just before breakfast, Afzal Guru, prime accused in the 2001 Parliament Attack was secretly hanged, and his body was interred in Tihar Jail. Was he buried next to Maqbool Butt? (The other Kashmiri who was hanged in Tihar in 1984. Kashmiris will mark that anniversary tomorrow.) Afzal’s wife and son were not informed. “The Authorities intimated the family through Speed Post and Registered Post,” the Home Secretary told the press, “the Director General of J&K Police has been told to check whether they got it or not.” No big deal, they’re only the family of a Kashmiri terrorist.

In a moment of rare unity the Nation, or at least its major political parties, the Congress, the BJP and the CPM came together as one (barring a few squabbles about ‘delay’ and ‘timing’) to celebrate the triumph of the Rule of Law. The Conscience of the Nation, which broadcasts live from TV studios these days, unleashed its collective intellect on us—the usual cocktail of papal passion and a delicate grip on facts. Even though the man was dead and gone, like cowards that hunt in packs, they seemed to need each other to keep their courage up. Perhaps because deep inside themselves they know that they all colluded to do something terribly wrong.

What are the facts?...

...Like most surrendered militants Afzal was easy meat in Kashmir—a victim of torture, blackmail, extortion. Anybody who was really interested in solving the mystery of the Parliament Attack would have followed the dense trail of evidence that leads into the shadowy grid in Kashmir that connects militants to surrendered militants, renegades to Special Police Officers, the Special Operations Group to the Special Task Force, and upwards and onwards. And upwards and onwards.

But now that Afzal Guru has been hanged, I hope our collective conscience has been satisfied. Or is our cup of blood still only half full?

Al Queda has heartily praised the scarifices of Afzal Guru and Kasab for the cause of Islam TV News .

Congratulations our Psecu-Jihadi Brigades who have been frothing over hanging of Kasab and Afzal Guru in India .

Now finally Al Queda has heard your heart rendering cries .

Now await withdrawal of USA from Pak-Af Axis there after the turn of India and Bangladesh will come when wave after wave Whabi Jihadi Terrorists will roll down in India being freed from Afghanistan and Pakistan who have been already subdued by Islamists .

Next stop India Bangladesh .

Finally the whole of the Indian sub Continent will be at the feet of Queda !

They would've had a slightest of justification in defending such a Terrorist, if they atleast showed some remorse in keeping an un-chargesheeted Cancer Patient, Woman and a "Suspect" under constant Torture and Narco analysis for many years.

There will be more attempts to free the terrorists if not hanged till death. Who will be responsile in case more security people die in an attempt by other terrorists to attack the jail holding persons like Afzal ? Will PUCL bring back those martyrs? Who will be responsible for the famalies of the security persons killed ? will PUCL take responsibility?

After watching the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTRyglPKGjs ; any sensible person would agree that Afjal Guru was only a small fish in the terrorist operation hatched by Jaish -e-mohammed from across the border, plus his background and compulsion which got him entangled in such sinister operation.

At least he was honest than a lot of politicians? who create situations for their political agenda involved in riots against innocent people in Delhi, Gujrat or in Muslim world. These people are victims of internal rift or external bigger players (incliding West).

I am against death penalty, which is banned in 140 countries worldwide, and considering Afjal Guru's confession (he almost turned approver for the state) had indeed helped Indian authorities to keep JEM in check in the Kashmir Valley.

In this context Afzal Guru’s legal treatment seems to have lacked these very basic elements that constitute the edifice of any just legal system.

When osama was killed in absolute secrecy, there was rejoice and clap. Does all these idiots of PUCL expect a wedding invitation to the family to witness the hanging? The cup is not even quarterful. Yes when we get the blood of other traitors too.

What is the current scenario with regard to terrorists and naxals’ merciless killings of innocent citizens? Can we protect the citizens? As a society, we have failed to create an atmosphere of complete safety for unarmed citizens.

Yes, we want justice to be given to a victim’s family and also ensure that enough care is taken to provide legal aid to the accused as well. But there are no quick solutions and solutions like a death sentence for the culprits cannot solve the basic issue.

If death penalty is to be done away with, I believe that a jail term for remaining part of life with hard labour, with no concessions or parole, may be a better alternative. But still the question in some readers’ mind would be why should the society bear the cost of keeping the guilty alive for so many years has no logical answer.

Incidentally, if death penalty is to be considered as an effective deterrent for preventing crimes of rape, terror and similar other crimes where innocent lives are killed (and I consider so called honour killings in the same category), we must review our law of pardon by the President of India.